Trouble at the Watering Hole
by forensicsfan
Summary: A Zebra is offed at O and Sara lends Nick a hand to investigate. A response to a Snickers challenge.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I don't profit from them, as always, coffee with George and Jorja would be nice...but I'd settle for a day on the set.

**Author's Note:** This is in response to Nikki's challenge. Keep in mind that I've never seen the "O" show in Vegas, so based on the links she provided I did my best.

* * *

"So they did this in the middle of the show then." Nick wanted to clarify what the stage manager for "O" was telling him. "And she was a Zebra?" 

"Yes, it was shaping up to be a rather good performance when something or someone pushed Artemis." The clipped British accent of the stage manager seemed to add to the aire of the "O" Theatre.

"Artemis...I thought the victim's name was Kathy." Nick looked at the man quizzically.

"Yes, well, her stage name was Artemis." The man looked solemn. "We're going to have to refund the entire audience..."

Nick narrowed his gaze at the man in annoyance. "Mr. Wrigley, a woman died."

"Right, sorry." He looked suitably apologetic and fished a business card out of the breast pocket of his suit and handed it to Nick. "If you need anything else, please contact me...my cellular number is there as well."

Nick just nodded and then as he watched the not too distraught Mr. Wrigley head up the aisle way, he noticed his colleague Sara Sidle making her way down. He smirked at her as she neared him. "I get you?"

She smirked back at his cheeky tone. "You'd rather have Warrick?" Her tone clearly implied something else entirely.

Nick laughed and shook his head. "No, you'll do...besides, you're much better looking than he is."

"Flirt." Sara enjoyed every second of the banter they'd shared for years. Deep in the back of her mind she wondered if either of them would ever act on it.

"You love it and you know it." He quipped back, puffing his chest out a little.

Sara felt a little emboldened as she set her kit down and she arched her brows at Nick. "Put up or shut up."

Nick looked a little surprised, but a smile stole over his face at the thought that maybe just maybe Sara might be interested in him the way he was interested in her. "Ok, after shift...let's go to Light."

Sara looked at him oddly. "Light?" She wondered if it was some new tanning place, and she'd seen enough sunburned tourists in Vegas to know better than to go out of her way to get extra sun; fake or not.

"The nightclub here at the Bellagio." Nick knew she didn't get out very much, but he'd reasoned that she would have at least been familiar with Light.

"Well, by definition, it's a nightclub...we don't get off until 7:00am." She smirked at him in amusement.

"Ok, we'll save that for when we both have the night off...how about Hoover Dam, we could stand in two time zones at once." He was reaching having been thrown a little at how receptive Sara seemed to going out with him, even though he hadn't actually officially asked her out yet.

Sara cleared her throat. "Why don't we work the crime scene first and then we can talk about how you're going to expand my social life...but I draw the line at going to any Elvis shows...that Elvis chapel was enough bad Elvis impersonation for a lifetime."

Nick grinned at her. "Ok." She was going to go out with him and suddenly he couldn't remember a thing about the case.

Sara cleared her throat again. "So I'm assuming you know something about our vic?"

Nick fumbled with his words momentarily. "Uh, yeah. Her name is Kathy and she was one of the Zebra...uh, her stage name was Artemis according to one not so helpful Mr. Wrigley. Apparently she was pushed during the show."

"Pushed?" Sara looked at him quizzically.

"Yeah, they tape every show, so I'm waiting to get that, hopefully it'll show something. But she was pushed into the pool." Nick informed her.

"So she drowned?" Sara queried studying the stage setup.

"I'm sure Doc Robbins will let us know exactly how she died, but the pool isn't that deep...she may have hit her head, it's hard to tell with all that makeup on." Nick was wondering to himself just who would have been close enough to push her and he immediately suspected one of the other Zebra. He was going to have to ask Brass to follow up on that.

After processing the crime scene and not finding anything glaringly obvious, Nick and Sara headed back to the lab. Without a bulk of evidence to process and the morgue backlogged due to a showgirl showdown gone bad in a club way off the strip, there wasn't much they were going to be able to do with their case until next shift.

Finding Sara in the locker room, Nick smiled. "Hey, so are you still up for me expanding your social life?"

Sara smiled back at him. "I guess I could let you do that." She wondered what the legendary ladies man Nick Stokes had in mind, but she decided that whatever he wanted to do, she was up for.

"Uh, so I was thinking we could either go play the penny slots...or maybe go back to my place...uh, and watch a movie or something." Nick knew what he'd like to do, but he didn't want to press his luck until he knew just how receptive Sara was to this date in the first place.

She pursed her lips together in an effort to keep her smile from getting bigger. "Uh, let's just go to your place, I think even with the penny slots I'd probably lose."

"Alright, you wanna follow me?" Nick realized as soon as he'd spoken the words that she knew very well where he lived. "I mean, meet me there?"

"Sure." Sara smiled at how awkward he seemed and she wondered to herself if he really was that nervous.

Twenty minutes later, Sara was pulling her SUV in behind Nick's and following him up the walkway into his house. She regarded him curiously as he closed the door. "So what did you want to do?"

"Uh, we could play video games." Nick realized how cheesy that sounded, he knew that Sara thought the amount of time he and Warrick spent playing them was a complete waste.

Sara noted his furrowed brow and stepped towards him. "Any other ideas?" She was forming a few of her own.

"Football is on..." And Sara hated football. He was really fumbling and he didn't know why.

"Ok, anything else?" Sara had an impish smirk on her face.

"Why don't you choose?" Nick reasoned that if he let her pick the activity that she'd be guaranteed to have a good time, and he could utilize his brain cells when she wasn't around to come up with a better second date.

"Ok." Sara stepped towards him until they were just a few inches apart. She looked into his eyes and smiled. "I was sort of thinking that this is what you had in mind." With that she leaned in and kissed him.

Nick took only a fraction of a second to respond to the kiss, pouring five years worth of flirtation into it. He began to maneuver them towards the couch intent on seeing where all of this might lead when his fire alarm went off. He pulled away from Sara. "Shit."

"Where's the fire?" Sara was breathing heavily as she glanced around.

"There's no fire." Nick shook his head. _Except in my loins maybe._

"What's with the alarm then?" Sara leaned in and kissed him again.

Nick reluctantly pulled away. "Just a second and I'll take care of that..." He was irritated that his faulty fire alarm system had chosen that moment to go off. "It probably needs a new battery in one of the sensors."

"Let me help." Sara reasoned that the faster they took care of the problem, the faster they could get back to that kiss.

After locating the offending smoke sensor and replacing the battery, Nick pulled Sara back into a smoldering kiss. She seemed to be very receptive to this expansion of her social life and Nick decided to push things a little bit more as he slid a hand up the back of her shirt. Gripping fistfuls of his shirt, Sara didn't seem to mind one bit, but as she felt the distinct sensation of her bra being unfastened, she pulled away slightly to suggest maybe they move somewhere more comfortable than the middle of the hallway. "Nick..."

Before she could say anything more, the smoke alarm went off again. Nick cursed, frustrated at being interrupted again. "Shit, shit, shit. I suppose I should change the batteries in all of them." The problem with these new fire alarm systems was that they were all interconnected and when one went off, they all went off; the batteries in them seemed to have the same problem.

"Ok, let's just get it done." Sara was feeling rather impatient. Once she had her mind set on something, she did not like to be distracted. One by one they changed the batteries in the smoke sensors and for some reason the whole situation made them laugh so that by the time they were done changing them all, they were both having fits of laughter.

They tumbled onto Nick's bed still giggling.

"You have to admit that's funny as hell." Nick couldn't help but smile at Sara who lay facing him.

"Yeah, it's funny...but it sort of killed the moment...several times." Sara was content to just see where things might go.

"I think we might still be able to revive it..." Nick scooted towards her and leaned in to kiss her, only to have her start laughing against his lips.

"I keep expecting that damn thing to go off again." Sara giggled in explanation.

"I think I can get you to forget about that..." Nick leaned in and kissed her again, slipping his hand up the front of her shirt. It didn't take long before neither of them were thinking about the smoke alarm at all.

It was quite a while later and Sara couldn't help but smile as she lay in Nick's arms. She propped herself up on his chest and smiled down at him with one brow arched. "Well that was a hell of a way to expand my social life...What do you have planned next?"

_**The End**_


End file.
